


We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off

by vixleonard



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Miscommunication, Nipple Piercings, Nude Modeling, Oral Sex, POV Male Character, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21724696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vixleonard/pseuds/vixleonard
Summary: How do you ask out someone you've only spent time with naked?
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 31
Kudos: 424
Collections: Still Rowing: A Gendrya Centric Fanfic Collection





	We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off

**Author's Note:**

> written at the request of [Snapdragon76](https://snapdragon76.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, who requested photographer Gendry and artist Arya inspired by [this photo](https://66.media.tumblr.com/112f779baeb9e0bba0cdecc4d7ab5974/tumblr_messaging_q20pznv0Vn1qb5c1q_250.png)

“What?” the girl demands, lifting her chin as if she is bracing for a fight, looking as fierce as someone holding their pants in hand can look, particularly when they are still wearing a pair of fuzzy Oscar the Grouch socks.

Gendry holds up his hands in surrender. “Nothing. You just…weren’t what I was expecting from your messages.”

“What, not hot enough for you?” She bends down, pulling off the socks and balling them together. As she turns to drop her jeans and socks onto a chair, he notices there is a hole in her underwear, revealing a circle of pale flesh, and there is something endearing about it, that makes his finger twitch with the desire to take a photo. “Your flyer didn’t say anything about needing to look like a Playboy bunny.”

Honestly, Gendry has no idea what the flyer said. After his third model quit because he was “too demanding” and “too mean,” Davos told him he’d never finish his portfolio or graduate on time if he kept it up. His advisor said he’d find him another model on the condition Gendry would be on his best behavior, and apparently this girl had seen the flyer on the bulletin board in the art building on campus.

At least this one isn’t likely to run out crying like the last one. Given that their acquaintance had started with her sending him a text message asking if he was a pervert before stating she refused to pose for any nude photos unless he’d pose for _her_ nude in exchange, Gendry thinks he’s more likely to run out crying than she is.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” he says as he adjusts the lights around his bed, which he supposes would be strange if not for the fact that he lives in a studio the size of a shoebox and his bed is the only piece of furniture other than the chair where she is piling her clothes.

“Arya. Arya Stark.” Before he can even ask the question forming in his brain, she adds, “Yeah, I’m Robb and Jon’s sister.”

He only vaguely knows the Stark brothers from parties, but he’s always liked them well enough. Gendry also notices that she didn’t mention being Sansa Stark’s sister, and while Gendry doesn’t know the elder Stark sister beyond the fact that she’s President of the Student Government, he figures there must be some kind of story there. 

“Never knew a whole family to go to college together.”

“Since our dad’s a professor, it’s free.”

“Thank god for that. You’d never afford it otherwise.”

The hint of a smile tugs at her lips, and Gendry resists the urge to smile himself. Everyone knows the Starks are one of the richest families in the state, and apparently Arya Stark doesn’t take her inclusion in the 1% that seriously.

“So how do you want to do this?” she asks as she tugs her hoodie off, revealing that she is not wearing a bra, she has matching barbells through her nipples, and there is a tattoo of a wolf racing across her ribs.

No, Arya Stark is most definitely not like the other models, and Gendry hopes to god he can get through this without her kicking his ass.

* * *

He’s surprised when Arya tell him to meet her at the art building. Gendry isn’t self-conscious by any means, but there’s a difference between being willing to pose nude and being willing to get naked in the building you spend the vast majority of your time in where anyone can wander in and see all he has to offer.

But when he tries to voice an objection, she makes a comment about how nobody cares about how tiny his dick is, and suddenly Gendry cares less about potentially being seen naked by his peers and more about proving to Arya that his dick is _not_ small.

Arya is in one of the upstairs studios, a handwritten sign taped to the door threatening the life of anyone who interrupted her. When he enters, she barely looks up from readying her supplies, and Gendry thinks she looks…softer tonight, more approachable in her paint stained overalls and what looks like an old team shirt with the sleeves cut off. Her dark hair is in a messy ponytail, revealing the multiple sets of hoops and studs in each ear, and as she reaches up on a shelf for something, Gendry sees the wolf tattoo on her ribs peek out the wide arm hole before disappearing again.

“I’ve never done this before,” he blurts out as he sets down his camera bag and toes off his boots.

Arya smiles. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”

“You don’t strike me as the gentle type,” he laughs as he pulls off his shirt, adding it to the pile of his belongings.

“Hey, I’m gentle as fuck. Don’t make me kick your ass.”

“You really think you could take me?”

“I’ve got four brothers. I could kick your ass without breaking a sweat.” Her eyes flick over him before she adds, “Even if you _are_ a giant.”

“I’m not a giant. You’re just tiny.”

“A tiny girl who can kick your ass.” Wiping her hands on her overalls, she looks at his expectantly, her eyebrows arching. “So…you gonna drop trou or what?”

“Oh!” Gendry hates how warm he feels his cheeks getting as he unbuttons his jeans. Hooking his thumbs into the waistband of both his jeans and boxers, he pushes them to the floor in one fluid motion, trying to step out of them with as much dignity as possible.

Of course, any attempt at dignity is completely undone when he realizes he is still wearing his socks, and there is absolutely no way to remove them without creating an image in Arya’s head he will never be able to undo.

Arya seems to realize this at the same moment he does because she smirks and assures him, “You can keep them on. I’m not going to be drawing your feet anyway.”

Which is how Gendry finds himself sitting naked on a stool, a pair of black socks making Arya start to laugh each time she glimpses them as she works.

“You know, generally when I take my clothes off for a woman, she doesn’t continuously laugh at me.”

“Take your clothes off for a lot of women then?”

Blushing again, he counters, “Sorry I didn’t take to stripping for a stranger with the ease you did.”

“Oh, that’s because I have so much practice from working over at Chataya’s.”

“What?!”

Arya laughs, the sound echoing in the room. “Oh my god, you should see your face! I may be my parents’ disappointing child, but I’m not a stripper.” She shakes a loose piece of hair away from her eyes. “And it wasn’t easy. I just figured if you were an asshole or creep, I’d tase you.”

“You had a taser?!”

“You were a stranger whose apartment I was going to in order to pose nude. You’re lucky a taser is all I brought.” She shrugs as she sharpens her pencil. “Besides, once I saw you, I knew I was safe.”

“Why? I mean, you _were_ ,” he rushes on, “because I’m not a creep, but why did you think you were safe after seeing me?”

She snorts. “Have you seen you?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well you’ve seen me. You’ve seen _all_ of me.”

Gendry shifts, using every ounce of willpower in his body _not_ to remember what Arya looked like posed naked on his bed. The only thing more embarrassing than wearing his socks for this session would be to get an erection that inevitably leads to Arya kicking his ass.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“That’s because you’re stupid.” She points at him with her pencil. “Now be a good model and sit still.”

Gendry spends the rest of the evening wondering what exactly Arya meant.

* * *

The fourth time Arya comes over to pose, she is on her knees in the center of his bed, her back to him, hands braced against the wall to create tension. Gendry is focused on the taut play of muscle beneath her skin when a loud growling sound fills the room.

“Was that your stomach?”

Arya twists her head to look over her shoulder, and for the first time, he sees a hint of pink on her cheeks. “I had two classes, including a studio, before this, so I didn’t have time to grab lunch.”

Gendry sets down his camera. “I need a break anyway. I’ll make you a sandwich.”

She turns around, leaning back against the pillows without attempting to cover herself, and Gendry wonders if she has any idea how fucking _tempting_ she looks like that. “You don’t have to do that.”

He opens the top drawer of his dresser, tossing her a shirt to wear before making his way over to the tiny kitchen in the corner. “You don’t have to eat it.”

“I’m gonna fucking eat it. I’m starving.”

Gendry grabs cheese and butter out of the fridge, turning on the hot plate that serves as his stove, and he’s about to make a joke about how he hopes he isn’t overwhelming her with grandeur when he catches sight of her. Somehow, in his ancient _Mott’s Metalworking_ t-shirt from his high school job, Arya looks even sexier than she had while completely naked, and he wonders how exactly you ask out someone who you’ve only spent time with naked.

“You going to the party at The Wall tonight?”

Arya snorts. “No, any time I go to one of my brothers’ parties, they spend the whole time making sure I don’t drink and scaring away anyone that comes within ten feet of me.”

“Do they do that to your sister too?”

He almost flinches when he sees the way Arya tenses, her brow furrowing. “You know Sansa?”

“Know _of_ her. She’s – “

“I know what she is.” She climbs off the bed, and Gendry watches helplessly as Arya pulls on her underwear and jeans, anger starting to flood her face. “That’s what this was about then?”

“What?”

“I’m so fucking stupid,” she mumbles, whipping off his shirt. “Never fucking learn.”

“Arya, what the hell – “

“If you wanted to fuck my sister, you should’ve just said so the first time I showed up instead of pretending like you wanted to be my friend.”

“What? Arya, I don’t – “

Wrestling her hoodie over her head, she grabs her massive backpack and swings it up onto her shoulder. “And for the record? Sansa’s gay. The only way she’d ever fuck you is if you looked like Margaery Tyrell.”

“No, Arya, I don’t – “

For such a small girl, she slams the door of his apartment with enough force to shake the walls.

* * *

Gendry isn’t sure if he should still show up at the upstairs studio for his planned modelling session after the fight in his apartment, but he knows Arya’s painting is due for the freshman exhibition next week and it would be shitty to leave her hanging. Of course, it’s also going to be shitty if she ends up tasing him for showing up, but he hopes he can explain himself before she’s able to get the taser out of her bag.

“This is abuse!” Gendry hears as he reaches the top of the stairs, a boy’s voice with an edge of panic echoing through the halls. “You are abusing a disabled person!”

“Oh, shut up!” Arya’s voice snaps, more irritation than anger in the words. “This beats sitting in the fucking library waiting for Robb.”

“I get to wear all of my clothes in the library!”

“Look, I’m not any happier about this than you are, but I have to finish – “

Gendry freezes in the doorway of the studio as Arya and her friend both turn to look at him. The guy is in a wheelchair, his auburn hair almost as long as Arya’s, a pair of glasses perched atop his aquiline nose. But Gendry is less interested in him than he is in Arya, who is wearing her overalls again, this time with a tube top beneath it, her hair now bubblegum pink and collected into two buns atop her head. 

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I – It’s Thursday night. We always meet – “

“I don’t need you. Bran’s helping me.”

“No, he’s not,” the boy – Bran – objects, wheeling himself over to Gendry. He extends his hand. “I’m Bran, Arya’s little brother, and you just saved me from a very _Flowers in the Attic_ experience that no amount of therapy would’ve been able to undo.”

“Oh my god, I wasn’t going to make you get naked!” Arya shrieks, her voice hitting the distinctive pitch of an irritated sibling that Gendry hasn’t heard since Bella found Edric going through her things.

“Gendry,” is all he says, shaking Bran’s hand.

“Well, I’m going to the library where things make sense. Good luck with her.”

“You’re dead to me!” Arya calls after him.

“Love you too, sis!”

After Bran leaves, Gendry awkwardly stands there as Arya very deliberately ignores him, setting up her canvas and getting her paints ready. He finally sighs, setting down his bag and beginning to pull his shirt over his head when Arya says, “I don’t need you.”

He strips off his shirt. “You were about to have your little brother pose for you, so I think you do.”

“I don’t – “

“And for the record,” he rushes on, raising his voice to drown her out, pulling off his boots and socks before unbuttoning his jeans, “I know your sister is gay because she was fucking _my_ sister last semester.”

Arya freezes. “What?”

“Mya Stone? Yeah, thought you remembered her,” he says, striding naked over to his stool. “I only asked about your sister because I wondered if your brothers were protective of her too or if they went easy on her because she’s into women. But thanks for thinking I’m some kind of douchebag who uses people to get to their siblings.”

Arya is still and quiet behind the canvas for so long, Gendry wonders if she is ever going to pick up her brush. And then she says, softer and more vulnerable than he’s ever heard her, “I’m sorry. It just…wouldn’t have been the first time a guy was only nice to me to get to her.”

“Well I’m not like that.”

“Okay.” She picks up her brush, squaring her shoulders. “Now shut up and don’t move.”

Gendry has lost all feeling in his legs and ass by the time Arya declares they’re done for the night, and she is in the midst of cleaning her brushes as Gendry carefully pulls on his pants. As she reaches up to replace a tray, he finds himself digging his camera out of his bag, snapping a few pictures.

“Seriously?”

“You just…This is better than anything in my apartment. Do you – I mean, can we – “

“What?”

“Take your top off but leave the overalls on.”

Arya arches an eyebrow but shrugs the straps off of her shoulders. She pulls off the tube top, dropping it beside the easel, before replacing the straps on her shoulders. The entirety of the wolf is visible as is the curve of her breast, and Gendry makes a soft noise in his throat as he begins to shoot.

“Do you want me to do anything special?”

“Just what you were already doing.” He moves to get another angle. “Someday you’re going to tell me about that tattoo.”

“Oh, am I?”

“Uh-huh. The piercings too.”

She smirks. “Really not that great of a story.”

“So tell me now.”

“I drew the wolf, and a friend of mine did it with a tattoo gun he bought online. I was fifteen, and my parents grounded me until I was sixteen.” She twists, one breast now exposed to reveal one of the silver barbells through her nipples. Gendry almost moans as she flicks it with her nails. “These I did at senior week at the beach on a dare from my sister.” Arya grins. “I got the better end of the deal.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s just say the piercing I made Sansa get made crossing her legs a very enjoyable experience.”

Gendry laughs. “I don’t believe it.”

“Ask your sister. She didn’t take it out.”

“Why’d you keep yours?”

She shrugs. “Because they hurt, and it seemed like a waste to just take them out. Because my parents hate all piercings that aren’t a single hole in each ear in which you’re supposed to wear pearls. And because when your sister looks like Sansa, it’s better to be ‘the sister with the nipple rings’ than ‘the ugly one.’”

“You’re not ugly.”

“Compared to Sansa – “

“Compared to _anyone_ ,” he cuts in, letting his camera drop. “You’re fucking gorgeous. And you’re smart and funny and, yeah, kind of scary and mean sometimes, but I still like it. I asked if you were going to that party because if you were, I was going to go because I thought maybe it would be nice to spend some time together where my balls weren’t out.”

“I mean…as far as balls go, they’re not too bad.”

Gendry chuckles, shaking his head. “That’s what you got from that?”

Taking a tentative step towards him, she ventures, “You like me.”

“Yeah, I like you.”

“And not just because you’ve been staring at my tits for the past month?”

“I mean…as far as tits go…”

“Ass,” she laughs, surprising him by unhooking the straps of her overalls and letting them drop.

“What are you doing?”

“You should put your camera down,” she says, stepping out of her overalls before shimmying out of her underwear, leaving her nude except for those damn bars through her nipples. “I may not have much modesty, but I’d rather not shoot a porno our first time out.”

“First?” he echoes, setting the camera on a table as he approaches her.

“Unless you’re bad at this. Then I’ll just avoid you until you graduate.” She smiles as she rises up on her toes to wrap her arms around Gendry’s neck. “Guess you’d better give it your all, Waters.”

Arya gasps as Gendry catches her on the back of her thighs, lifting her off of her feet and setting her on the worktable behind her. He kisses her the way he’s imagined doing every time they’ve worked together, cupping her face between his hands, slipping his tongue past her lips, and he moans when she nips at his lip, her hands sliding over his chest.

“Do you know how many times I almost molested you? Your body should be _illegal_ ,” Arya moans, dragging her nails over his abs. 

“Says the girl who always just _happened_ to have to stretch when her shirt was off.” Leaning her back, one hand braced against the center of Arya’s back, he kisses his way over her collarbone to her breasts. As his tongue drags over one of her nipples, Arya grips his hair tight, arching her back as hard as she can.

“Use your teeth,” she pants, crying out as he complies, and Gendry fumbles one-handedly with the fly of his jeans as he switches to her other breast, rolling his tongue around her nipple before tugging it with his teeth.

Gendry almost weeps in relief when he pushes his jeans down, his cock aching. He groans as Arya takes him hand, working him with confidence, and it takes him a moment for her words to filter through the noise in his brain.

“Do you have something?”

His cock is so hard, it hurts, Arya is naked and willing in his arms, and Gendry suddenly wants to weep for an entirely different reason because _he didn’t bring a fucking condom_. As he confesses this, Arya looks at him as if she isn’t certain whether she wants to still fuck him or murder him. 

“I have some at my place – “

Arya nods, leaning forward for a quick kiss, before leaning back on the table. “There are still things we can do.” When Gendry only looks at her, certain he’s misunderstanding, she rolls her eyes, threads her fingers through his hair, and pushes his head. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who doesn’t go down.”

If it means he gets to keep touching Arya, he’ll never come _up_ again. Instead he smirks, pushing her thighs apart as he bends down, staring at the center of her. As often as he’s seen her nude, he’s never seen _this_ part of her and certainly not so close, and Gendry wants to tell her she’s beautiful here too except she’s squirming and making little noises to urge him on. He brushes a kiss against the soft skin of her inner thigh before licking over her cunt in one, long stroke, and as the taste of her explodes on his tongue, Gendry decides he will do whatever it takes to keep Arya saying his name like this.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Arya begins to chant as he takes her clit between his lips, suckling gently as he rubs it with the flat of his tongue, and for as vocal as she’s been, she is silent as she comes, shaking and holding her breath before exhaling as her entire body relaxes.

“Another?” he asks breathlessly, and Arya shakes her head, trying to push herself up into a sitting position. 

“Do you want me to – “ Arya gestures towards his cock, and for the first time he sees something like nervousness fill her eyes. It makes him shake his head, placing her hand back on him and showing her how he liked to be touched.

It takes an embarrassingly short amount of time to make him come, Gendry sinking his teeth into Arya’s shoulder as he makes a mess on her thighs. When he kisses her, she presses close to him, almost as if she is afraid he’s going to disappear, and Gendry wants to punch every guy who has ever hurt Arya Stark to make her think she isn’t enough.

After they’ve cleaned up and gotten dressed, Gendry is holding open the studio door for her to pass when Arya asks, “You can take a punch, right?”

“Why, you planning on going _50 Shades_ on me when we get back to my place?”

“Yeah, asshole, this was all an elaborate plan to beat your ass with a riding crop.” She rolls her eyes. “No, Bran probably went back to the library and told Robb all about you, and if he knows, so does everyone else.”

“And you think your brothers are going to punch me?”

“No, I _know_ my brothers are going to punch you.”

Gendry shakes his head, dropping an arm around Arya’s shoulders. “Worth it.”


End file.
